Hosiery products are customarily manufactured by knitting elongate, tubular blanks on circular knitting machines. Such blanks have welt portions at one end and toe portions at the other end thereof. These blanks are subsequently processed into hosiery products which may include socks, knee-high stockings, thigh-high stockings and pantyhose.
With all of these hosiery products, the blanks are typically delivered from the knitting machine with open toe portions which must be closed by seaming on sewing machines. Such toe portions are normally closed by skilled operators manually operating sewing machines or more automated toe closing machines. In both cases, it is important that the hosiery blanks be delivered to the toe closing operation in the proper orientation for that processing operation to occur with minimum handling of the hosiery blanks.
In the manufacture of pantyhose, hosiery blanks from the knitting machine are processed prior to formation thereof into pantyhose. One such processing step usually performed is autoclaving, in which a large amount of hosiery blanks are placed in an autoclave and subjected to heat (in the form of steam) under pressure to shrink the hosiery blanks and prepare them for formation into pantyhose. Normally, the hosiery blanks are washed and dyed before formation into pantyhose, while sometimes the hosiery blanks are first formed into pantyhose before washing and dyeing.
Customarily, a pair of hosiery blanks are formed into a pantyhose by having the welt portions thereof slit for a predetermined distance and the slit edges sewn together, with or without a crotch piece being inserted. Several types of semi-automated machines have been developed and are currently available commercially for performing the welt portion slitting and seaming. These machines are referred to in the trade as "line closers" and Takatori Machinery Mfg. Co., Ltd. supplies several different models of such line closers.
Such line closers include respective pairs of welt portion receiving members over which the opened welt portions of the hosiery blanks are positioned in surrounding relation. Initially, these welt portions were opened and positioned manually over the receiving members. This manual operation required skilled operators who must quickly and accurately pick-up, orient and place a pair of hosiery blanks in position. Also, such manual operations were expensive and fraught with labor problems.
Many attempts have been made to deliver oriented pantyhose blanks to such a line closer. Examples of such mechanisms are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,620,494, issued Nov. 4, 1986 to Takatori Corporation; U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,501, issued Apr. 30, 1996 to the assignee of this application. While substantially fully automated and capable of delivering properly oriented hosiery blanks onto the receiving members of a line closer, these prior mechanisms are exceedingly complex and therefore expensive. In addition, maintenance of such complex mechanisms is anticipated to be both difficult and time consuming. It is believed, therefore, that a need exists for a simple, reliable and inexpensive mechanism for delivering hosiery blanks or other flexible objects for further processing, such as to a line closer.
Once the hosiery blanks are slit and sewn together to form the panty portion of the pantyhose and the toe portions have been closed, it is necessary, in most instances, to inspect the completed pantyhose prior to packaging. Typically a pair of pantyhose is positioned on inspection forms by a skilled operator who inspects the pantyhose for defects. This manual inspection is time consuming, expensive and labor intensive.
Recently, it has been proposed to inspect pantyhose by mechanized inspection apparatus. One example of such an inspection apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,235, issued Mar. 5, 1996 to the assignee of this application. While the inspection of the pantyhose is mechanized in this apparatus, the positioning of the pantyhose on the inspection forms is performed manually. Such manual positioning of the pantyhose requires considerable skill and is expensive.
It is typical for first quality pantyhose to be delivered from the inspection apparatus to a boarding machine, such as an Auto Setter, manufactured by Takatori Corporation. U.S. Pat. No. 4,703,877, issued Nov. 3, 1987 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,094,317, issued Mar. 10, 1992 to Takatori Corporation disclosed pantyhose boarding apparatus, with U.S. Pat. No. 4,703,877 disclosing a transfer mechanism for transferring the pantyhose from the inspection forms to the boarding forms.
There are instances in which it may be desirable to mount the pantyhose directly on the boarding forms of a boarding apparatus without first positioning the pantyhose on an inspection apparatus. In the past, such mounting of pantyhose on boarding forms was performed manually by placing the pantyhose directly onto the boarding forms or by manually placing the pantyhose on a transfer device that then positioned the pantyhose on the boarding forms.